Abstract
Hegel considers that Plato’s political theory, as articulated in the Republic, constitutes a retrospective philosophical endorsement of the traditional Greek polis which was disintegrating in Plato’s lifetime under the impact of novel, individualistic, disruptive forces. For Hegel, Plato is reasserting what Hegel takes to be the preeminent characteristic of the Greek polis, evident in both Athens and Sparta, namely the vital, harmonious integration of the individual into the ethical practices of the community.1 This understanding of the Republic reflects Hegel’s well-known declaration in the Philosophy of Right proclaiming the dependence of theory upon the prior achievements of practice. ‘When Philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philisophy’s grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The Owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.’2
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Notes and References
M. Inwood, ‘Hegel, Plato and Greek “Sittlichkeit”’, in Z. A. Pelczynski (ed.), The State and Civil Society (Studies in Hegel’s Political Philosophy ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984 ), p. 54.
E. Gellner, ‘Hegel’s Last Secrets: From Marx to Expressionism’, Encounter, April 1976, p. 33.
R. Plant, Hegel ( London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973 ), p. 192.
See D. Forbes, ‘Introduction’ to G. W F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Introduction: Reason in History, trans. by H. B. Nisbet ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975 );
D. O’ Brien, Hegel on Reason and History ( Chicago, Ill.: Chicago University Press, 1975 ).
Z. A. Pelczynski, ‘Political Community and Individual Freedom in Hegel’s Philosophy of the State’, in Z. A. Pelczynski (ed.), The State and Civil Society (Studies In Hegel’s Political Philosophy) ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984 ), p. 57.
T. Irwin, Plato’s Ethics ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995 );
G. Klosko, The Development of Plato’s Political Theory ( New York: Methuen, 1986 ).
J. Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
J. Glenn Gray, Hegel’s Hellenic Ideal ( New York: King’s Crown Press, 1941 ), p. 78.
R. Robinson, Plato’s Earlier Dialectic ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975 ), p. 202.
C. Taylor, Hegel ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975 ), p. 6.
R. Ware, ‘“Sittlichkeit and Self-Consciousness”, Hegel’s Metaphiloso-phy and Historical Metamorphosis’, History of Political Thought, vol. 17, no. 2 (1996).
L. Strauss, The City and Man ( Chicago, Ill.: Rand McNally 1963 ), p. 62.
J. Findlay, ‘Hegelianism and Platonism’, in J. J. O’Malley, K. W. Algozin and F. G. Weiss (eds), Hegel and the History of Philosophy ( The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974 ), p. 74.
T. E. Wartenberg, ‘Hegel’s Idealism: The Logic of Conceptuality’, and M. Forster, ‘Hegel’s Dialectical Method’, in F. C. Beiser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993 ).
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© 1999 Gary K. Browning
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Browning, G.K. (1999). Hegel’s Plato: The Owl of Minerva, Political Philosophy and History. In: Hegel and the History of Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596139_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230596139_3
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